The Institute has fielded numerous requests from golfers
concerned with the problem of providing secure
placement of the feet during an energetic
swing at the little white ball. The large
spikes attached to conventional golf shoes
seem to provide this function but sometimes
they cause inadvertent surface damage to
delicate putting greens. Could there be some
less-damaging attachment to footwear which
still provides the required support?

Institute staffers have noticed the recent
arrival of golf shoes carrying smaller rubber
protrusions which are barely noticeable as
the golfer strides the links. Investigations
of the efficacy of this new system have so
far produced mixed results. Ordinary research
points to the conclusion that these smaller
protrusions provide adequate support for
all but the most hefty swats at the ball
but this solution generates a new problem:
just how do the professionals running the
course (not to mention the elder members
of the club) maintain their required uppityness?
Not only is it difficult to determine whether
the golfer has put up the extra bucks in
the price of his shoes (any respectable golf
course must turn away players without special
footwear), the non-metallic cleats make almost
no noise as golfers move about the pro shop.
One investigator remarked that this spike
development has the same disturbing implications
as the mini-collared shirt. Some golf club
operators have reported embarrassing situations
in which seemingly non-collared golfers (appearing
to be one of the unwashed wearing a T shirt),
subsequent to ejection from the course, won
appeals after producing receipts from trendy
clothing stores.

The Institute’s current stance on this question
is that the incursion of the new, smaller
cleat should be suppressed. Surely in the
future some Advanced research organization
will produce a variable length spike and
solve this impending dilemma.

Rob Peterson, Director (97.12.3, IFOR-106)

A response from Al Crouch:

yes, your directorship, you have indeed hit
upon a timely and important topic. i, myself,
have recently acquired a pair of those spikeless
golf shoes with the short non-metallic protuberances,
having previously owned and used the metal
spike variety. i therefore feel qualified
to comment on this new trend. let me structure
my comments in two parts: control of the
golfer's angular momentum during the swing
and (more importantly) the sight and sound
of the golfer's image in the locker room,
the pro shop and on the links.

a. swing dynamics

now let's make it clear that there are two
fundamentally different regimes to be considered.
first, the accomplished, low-handicapper
who is not embarrassed to be seen swinging
a golf club, who never drives his club head
into the ground or breaks mach 1 in the air
above the ball, and whose follow-through
does not include falling to the ground. then
there are the rest of us.

the first group has mastered all the david
ledbetter tapes and realizes that balance
is extremely important, during address, backswing,
downswing and follow-through. he never becomes
unbalanced, and applies only a minimum of
shear load to the bottom of his shoes. he
can use any kind of shoe sole, spiked or
spikeless. in fact, a slick shoe covered
with grease and standing in a tray of ball
bearings would add maybe one or two strokes
to his score for 18 holes. enough about him.
if we're smart, we do not play with him.

the other group needs all the support possible.
in many cases, even the steel spikes are
insufficient. your humble correspondent has
two recommendations here. first, if you can
get a pair of ice-climber's boots (the ones
with 2-inch hardened steel spikes), attach
their soles to your golf shoes. better yet,
just golf in the boots. you will enjoy a
maximum of stability and will also have some
other interesting experiences. such as the
interesting ride in the golf cart when you
drive your spikes through the accelerator
pedal and can't get them out. and the interesting
response you get from the guy in the pro
shop when you clomp around his shop with
a stack of floor tiles skewered onto your
feet. an alternative approach is more technical
(and therefore probably of more interest
to your directorship). if the golf courses
could be pursuaded to install steel plates
under the tee boxes, a magnetic shoe might
be the answer. a small high-energy battery
pack on your belt, feeding a superconducting
supermagnet in the shoe sole and you say
goodbye to those embarrassing slips and falls.
a side benefit of this approach could be
a magnet in the club head to add acceleration
in that all-important last phase of the downswing.

b. GPI

well, so much for stability. now to the more
important topic of golfer's public image
(or GPI as it is known to sports psychologists
and media consultants). The fact that GPI
is THE most important aspect of the game
is readily apparent to anyone who has (a.)
been to a golf store (b.) read a golf magazine
or (c.) watched the golf channel. time nor
space does not permit a complete discussion
of this topic, which covers the whole spectrum
of the golf experience: what you wear, what
type of clubs, what golf ball, what golf
bag, what you drive to the golf course, what
you eat at the snack bar, what you drink
at the 19th hole, etc, etc. never forget:
GPI is the essence of golf. now to the shoe.

nothing has had much more impact on the game
of football than the introduction of astroturf.
on the one hand, it has spawned a whole new
product line of sports shoes that are compatible
with the synthetic grass. on the other hand,
it has taken away the well-known round battle
scars that so many pigskin warriors liked
to show in their shins and calves and it
has also taken away the really macho sound
of solid cleats on the concrete tunnel leading
from locker room to the field. the machine-gun
staccato of hundreds of cleats hitting concrete
as the team ran to the field used to be a
staple of football broadcasting. there was
always a camera set up in the tunnel. it
ain't the same anymore.

i digressed to this topic because football
is the defacto standard for the manly image.
the golfing duffer who has just sat on the
bumper of his car and put on his metal spikes
and then walks that six feet to the golf
cart, has one brief surge of the stadium
tunnel mystique. by god, i'm tough, and i'm
ready. send me in, coach. no way that image
will ever be invoked by those soft, yielding
spikeless soles. actually, from a freudian
viewpoint the whole thing could be summarized
thusly: "steel is hard, plastic is soft."
a solid vote for steel.

one good thing the new shoes are doing is
to improve the swing follow-through. the
ideal finishing position that we are all
taught is to pivot and raise the back foot
up onto the toe. this exposes the bottom
of the shoe to full view behind the golfer.
so what better way to show off the sole of
your choice than a full finish, held for
about 10 seconds while you try to figure
where the ball went.

many golf courses are ruling out steel spikes
for the damage that is done to the greens.
steel spikes may go the way of the mashie
and the niblick. if that happens, it will
be an opportunity for a short IFOR development
project. why not a soft spike with a built-in
sound source, a "clicker" that
gives the sound of a metal spike whenever
it is pressed? and if the soft spike was
shaped and colored to look like steel, so
much the better.

well, your humble hill-country correspondent
has rambled on for too long. just remember,
as the famous fernando used to say, "it
is better to look good than to be good".
a good GPI can offset a lot of triple bogies.

:aec

.....from the Institute

Al, I think you have really made some
good points; you clearly possess the snap
required of one working at some kind of research
institute, ordinary or advanced. Your thoughts
on the extremes of foot stability push the
envelope both physically and emotionally.
And the concept of GPI probably has not had
enough attention from the research community
even though the lay press has worked it over
well. The Institute thanks you for your observations
and reserves the right to unashamedly plagarize
your writings as required (IFOR has a policy
of making small revisions to received text
to minimize legal problems).